culinary society: monkey bread

Hot cinnamon and brown sugar mess.

recipe courtesy of pioneerwoman

♥
ann and amelia

plan v: pad thai

I suppose we should start separating our posts into tabs because not all of our culinary adventures can be funded by the Marketplace (but from Whole Foods in this case).

We volunteered to make vegetarian/vegan/gluten free pad thai for the Plan V club here, which is all about eating vegetarian/vegan/gluten free food... and the majority of the members were none of the above.

(recipe courtesy of about.com)

slight variations: 

added tofu

skipped the vegetable stock

scallions served on the side

made two separate dishes, with and without eggs

♥
ann and amelia

exception.al cheesecake

It was Bryan's birthday on Sunday, so naturally, we made him a cheesecake (without the use of an electric mixer).
Note: none of the ingredients were obtained from the Marketplace. Recipe adopted from The Pioneer Woman


filling
2/3 cup sugar

3 packets (8 oz.) of cream cheese

1/2 cup sour cream
4 eggs

crust

1 package vanilla wafers
1/2 cup almonds
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup butter

topping
(we omitted this part because we forgot to get fruit)
2 cups fruit of choice
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water

[the birthday boy]

♥
ann and amelia

pseudo risotto

from the Marketplace
white and brown rice
cheese
scallions
lemon
zucchini
squash
mushrooms
onions
green bell pepper
spinach
red bell pepper
jalapeño

(I'm not sure if we got our money's worth on this one.)
(we didn't actually use everything because the squash was frozen, and I didn't feel like cutting up the red pepper and jalapeño)

from the farmer's market/home
1 eggplant (50 cents!)
cherry tomatoes
olive oil, salt, pepper

1. chop
2. throw in skillet (zuchinni and eggplant first) ((tomatoes were roasted separately last))
3. cook, stirring constantly
Can't get more simplistic than that.

Needed
more cheese
herbs

♥
ann and amelia

bread pudding cupcakes

from the marketplace

6 slices of wheat bread

1/3 cup mini chocolate chips 

1/3 cup almonds

1/3 cup craisins
1 banana

2 cups skim milk

from whole foods/home

4 eggs

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

(the cinnamon is missing from this picture because the people sharing the kitchen needed it for their steaks)
(the RA was teaching his hall how to make steaks, which was really cool - love bonding through food)

This was our first attempt at transforming bland marketplace food into something delicious. We ended up baking in the Bell Tower kitchen with their communal equipment since we haven't had the chance to bring our mixing bowls etc. to school yet (and BT has a super nice and big kitchen). They didn't have a casserole dish so we had to improvise and use a cupcake pan instead... hence the cupcake part in bread pudding cupcakes, which actually worked out for the better when we were walking around campus, handing them out.

Mix all the wet ingredients + sugar together.

Butter is optional for a more golden crust.  We opted to leave it out though.

Roughly break up pieces of banana (optional of course).  You could try grated apple too.

Alternate filling the cups with bread pieces and egg mixture, making sure the bread gets soaked so it doesn't burn.

Finished product:

Yay, happiness :)

♥

ann and amelia

welcome

mission: improve

pictured below is the Marketplace
keywords: confusing meal plans and random bonding

prospective meals

fruit cobbler

granola bars

some sort of rice dish

mushroom crepe cake

tiramisu

hummus dip

bread pudding

banana bread

french toast

fruit pizza

delicious sandwiches

apple tart

olive focaccia

bruschetta

veggie burgers

and more..

we're excited!

♥
ann and amelia

what they don't rave about...

... is the cafeteria food.  Cafeteria food is never good, never depicted as remotely edible in shows and movies, and often times lacking in color and shape.  I'm drawing a memory of this one scene in Ned's Declassified where a brown blob of mush starts crawling off Ned's plate, and I literally expected something of that nature to happen when I first set foot in my middle school cafeteria.  Luckily it wasn't that bad, but it was still just one step above edible.  Not only that, but it was $4 a day for a plate of thawed out food sold in bulk at Costco, which quickly adds up if you're eating it everyday.  Needless to say, I stayed away from cafeteria food in high school.

Then there's college... where dining hall food is an inevitable part of every. single. day.  While I don't find it completely disgusting, I also don't find it delicious nor worth my $15 (yes, each meal is worth about $15).  Despite the fact that we all have meal plans, people still surreptitiously stash away food into tupperware containers to get their money's worth... which is a good idea, no lie.  I usually take a piece of fruit to go after every meal.

Anyways, all summer, I was thinking of ways I could take some extra food and turn it into something delicious.  Today, Ann said basically the same words, and I got super excited because now I have someone to share that with, and so this blog was born.

Ann's asleep right now, and thus, did not join me in this post because I don't have a class until 2:40 pm. [But she does have one in the workings I see].

Tomorrow will be all about taking pictures of the Marketplace, our designated eatery at Duke, and its contents.  And this weekend, I believe you can expect a method recipe for a yummy cobbler.

By the way, our individual blogs are at the top.